How Can Researchers Make Use of EOSC?

Home » News Opinion » How Can Researchers Make Use of EOSC?

How Can Researchers Make Use of EOSC?

How Can Researchers Make Use of EOSC?


19 Nov 2019

The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) has entered a critical phase in preparing for 2021, where the first full iteration of EOSC will be available for researchers providing access to a virtual environment with open and seamless services for storage, management, analysis and re-use of research data, across borders and scientific disciplines.

According to recent estimations, EOSC will have an impact on 1.7 million European researchers and 70 million professionals in science, technology, the humanities and social sciences across Europe, eventually even beyond. EOSC will allow researchers across various countries and scientific disciplines to work together in solving today’s biggest societal issues. It will achieve this by federating existing scientific data infrastructures, currently dispersed across disciplines and the EU Member States.

The EOSC model envisions a pan-European federation of data infrastructures built around a shared core, as well as providing access to a wide range of publicly funded services supplied at national, regional and institutional levels, and to complementary commercial services.

According to the EOSC Implementation Roadmap, EOSC offers five main types of services for European researchers.

  1. A unique identification and authentication service and an access point and routing system towards the resources of the EOSC;
  2. A protected and personalized work environment/space;
  3. Access to relevant service information;
  4. Services to find, access, re-use and analyze research data generated by others, accessible through appropriate catalogues of datasets and data services;
  5. Services to make their data FAIR, to store them and ensure long-term preservation.

While such services are currently being provided to specific scientific communities, they are limited by the contexts of disciplines, by national boundaries or by both. The EOSC would make them all available irrespective of discipline or national boundaries.

Around these priorities, the EOSC Governing Board together with the Executive Board established five EB Working Groups:

  • Landscape: Mapping of the existing research infrastructures which are candidates to be part of the EOSC federation;
  • FAIR: Implementing the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data principles by defining the corresponding requirements for the development of EOSC services, in order to foster cross-disciplinary interoperability;
  • Architecture: Defining the technical framework required to enable and sustain an evolving EOSC federation of systems;
  • Rules of participation: Designing the Rules of Participation that shall define the rights, obligations governing EOSC transactions between EOSC users, providers and operators;
  • Sustainability: Providing a set of recommendations concerning the implementation of an operational, scalable and sustainable EOSC federation after 2020.

The single contact point for European researchers and innovators to discover, access, use and re-use a broad spectrum of resources for advanced data-driven research is the EOSC Portal, which through the joint efforts of EOSC-hub, eInfraCentral, EOSC-Pilot, and OpenAIRE Advance, piloted a first iteration of the integration and management system of EOSC and aggregates services from local, regional and national e-Infrastructures and service providers. For researchers, this means a broader access to services supporting their scientific discovery and collaboration across disciplinary and geographical boundaries.

EOSC also provides numerous funding opportunities for researchers. Detailed information about these opportunities can be found here.

This year, the EOSC Symposium will be an opportunity for all EOSC stakeholders, including representatives of researcher institutions, to understand the benefits they can obtain from EOSC and the important role they will play in the future. Join the EOSC Secretariat network to learn about the outcomes of the EOSC Symposium!